Festivals

Le Grand Bal /

Le Grand Bal

“Dance is the boundless human desire to touch, to be close to someone, to feel excitement, to lose all inhibitions until the heart threatens to burst from your chest and leap into that of your partner’s”. These are the thoughts of director Laetitia Carton, expressed while filming an annual folk dance festival in a small town in France. This passion radiates from the screen. Thousands of dance enthusiasts of all ages, sizes, and genders spend a week losing themselves in music from all over the world. Most of them hardly sleep at all. They dance in the halls, where bands play, at workshops, and even in the dining room, from dawn to the small hours of the night. Carton interweaves this display of ecstasy with personal stories about human interactions made possible by dance, for those willing to risk it.